Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far (Part 385/2)

Welcome to Part 2 of our Kingdom Hearts plot summary. First off, let’s look at Kingdom Hearts 385/2 Days. From here on I’ll be referring to it as Days because Tetsuya Nomura and his silly titles can go get lost.

Days takes place at the same as the first Kingdom Hearts but ends after Chain of Memories and begins with Roxas being found in Twilight Town by Xemnas, the leader of Organization XIII. Roxas bears a striking resemblance to Ventus from Birth By Sleep and is capable of wielding a Keyblade. This is because Roxas is Sora’s Nobody. He was created when Sora was turned into a Heartless in the first Kingdom Hearts and has taken on Ventus’ appearance because Ventus’ heart latched onto Sora when he was possessed by Vanitas all those years ago. Anyhow, Xemnas takes him into Organization XIII as its thirteenth member. He is then sent on missions to other worlds each day to destroy Heartless and release the hearts they’ve stolen.

This will allow the Organisation to summon Kingdom Hearts and become complete beings, because it worked out so well when Ansem did it. On his missions, Roxas is under the charge of Axel and the two become best friends. After each mission they spend the evening on Twilight Town’s clocktower eating sea salt ice cream and shooting the breeze.

Axel, Roxas and Xion eating ice cream atop the clocktower.

But it’s never that simple. Not long after Roxas joins, the Organization takes on a new member called Xion. She’s strange in the sense that she looks different to different people for some reason. Later on Axel and a bunch of the lads are sent to Castle Oblivion and Roxas is paired up with Xion. They get on well and become pretty good friends. She reveals that she too can wield a Keyblade. So shocked is Roxas that he walls into a coma a couple of days later, at the same time Sora is put to sleep in his memory pod at the end of Chain of Memories. Roxas eventually wakes up to find that everyone sent to Castle Oblivion has been killed except for Axel and Xion. He decides they should hang out more and they all become friends. Around this time Roxas starts experiencing Sora’s memories and gets frustrated when he can’t figure out where they’re coming from. These memories lead him to question how he is able to wield a Keyblade and become distrustful of Organization XIII.

Meanwhile, the still sleeping Sora is moved to Twilight Town by DiZ and Naminé. Xion encounters Riku who questions her and doesn’t believe her Keyblade is real. With her also being a Nobody, Riku says she should leave and find her original self to merge together and become whole. However, she can’t decide being that and leaving Roxas and Axel behind. Later on she discovers that she is actually a failed attempt at cloning Sora. Xemnas, the Organization’s leader tried but failed to clone him in case his plan to use him to further their plans didn’t work out. Her resemblance to Kairi in Roxas’ memories comes about because she came from Sora’s strong memories of Kairi. However, as Naminé was screwing with Sora’s memories it affects Xion and she starts to take on Sora’s appearance. This all confuses the hell out of her, she gets mad, leaves the Organization and falls out with Roxas and Axel.

Xemnas sure does look a lot like Terra-Xehanort. I wonder what’s up with that…

Another member, Xigbar is sent out to get Axel and Xion back. He finds them in Wonderland and gets ready to fight but then has visions of Ventus. While he’s distracted trying to figure out what he just saw Xion takes him out. Axel is confused about what’s happening and later on Roxas leaves the Organization to find out more about his true self.

Some time after, Xemnas reprograms Xion and she tryies to absorb Roxas to become whole. However, doing this would mean Sora would be asleep forever. Roxas is against the idea of being eaten alive and defeats Xion in battle. She reveals Xemnas’ plans to him and as she’s dying in his arms she requests that he set free all the hearts the Organization has captured. She fades away, saying she must merge with Sora and become whole. It’s all very sad but then Roxas gets to take her Keyblade so now he can wield two at once like a badass.

And thank God he has two of them because he has to fight Riku. DiZ sent him out to capture Roxas and force him to merge with Sora so he can have all his memories back. Roxas nearly defeats Riku but he unleashes the beast inside him and turns the tide of battle. Tapping into this inner darkness causes him to take on the appearance of Ansem, the evil one, who resides deep within his heart. Riku turns back to normal and bring Roxas to DiZ who uses computer magic to digitize him and but him into a virtual Twilight Town. Roxas awakens within with no memory of the Organization and is hanging out with friends called Oletter, Hayner and Pence.

Inspired by DiZ, Riku takes face bandages to a whole new level.

TL;DR: Roxas is half Sora, half Ventus and all man. He joins the Organization and befriends Axel. A new face, Xion joins and becomes friends with Roxas and Axel. Roxas starts to experience Sora’s memory. Him and Xion both wield Keyblades. She’s really a clone of Sora. Riku is working with DiZ to restore Sora’s memories but he still has Ansem inside. Xemnas wants to capture hearts to unleash the power of Kingdom Hearts but Xion tells Roxas to undo all that. She dies and merges her heart with Sora’s. Riku knocks Roxas out and takes him to DiZ who wipes his memories and puts him in a virtual world where he can hang out with his friends.

Now with 4 games down, we can finally get onto the next main entry. Kingdom Hearts 2 is up next.

The second Kingdom Hearts takes place directly after the first four. It begins with Sora, Donald and Goofy asleep in their pods after a year waiting for their prince charming to wake them. Meanwhile, the player takes control of Roxas in Twilight Town without any of his memories. Now he’s just a boy living in the city with his friends. However, he constantly has dreams of Sora. Roxas obtains a Keyblade to fight off the Nobodies that are attacking Twilight Town. These Nobodies are do not take on the appearance of other people like with Roxas and Xion, rather they are strange looking monsters and this game’s version of the Heartless. He encounters Axel but doesn’t recognise him. Later on, Roxas ends up in an abandoned mansion where he meets Naminé who tells him he’s a Nobody, not that he knows what that is. Delving further into the mansion he meets DiZ and is brought to Sora, Donal and Goofy. Sora’s pod opens and Roxas merges with him. Upon waking they find their journal completely blank apart from the words “Thank Naminé.”

Cool new duds, same old smile.

Now the story follows Sora and the gang. They get out of their pods and visit Twilight Town to figure out what the hell’s going on. They meet Pence, Olette and Hayden who tell them they saw King Mickey at the train station. Upon their arrival a group of Nobodies shows up to fight and Mickey arrives to save the day before promptly disappearing. Sora figures is Mickey got out of the realm of darkness then so did Riku. They set off to find their friends once again. They take the train out of the station and off to Yen Sid’s tower. Don’t tell me your local train line doesn’t have a stop at the nearest Keyblade Master wizard’s house.

At the tower they meet Pete from the old Mickey Mouse cartoons who tells of his plans to go around all the worlds and build a new army of Heartless for Maleficent and they can conquer the universe together. Of course they bop him over the head and continue up to Yen Sid’s tower. There he explains that when a person becomes a Heartless it may lead to the existence of a Nobody too. He says they have no feelings but are only pretending because they don’t have hearts. He also informs the gang that they must stop Organization XIII, comprised entirely of Nobodies. With that out of the way, the Fairy Godmothers grant the group a sweet new set of outfits.

With their new gear they set off to visit a whole bunch of Disney worlds, both new and old to fight Nobodies and Heartless. They end up in Hollow Bastion and Sora must fight a seemingly endless horde of Heartless. Their army is being controlled by Maleficent and the Organization working in tandem. They learn that the evil Ansem they fought in the first game was actually Terra-Xehanort’s Heartless and that Xemnas is Terra-Xehanort’s Nobody. The real Ansem has gone missing. As we know from Birth By Sleep, Ansem the Wise found Terra-Xehanort who had lost his memories and took him on as a pupil.

Is this the end for Sora, Donald and Goofy? No.

Xemnas reveals his Master plan to the group. The Organization is rebuilding Kingdom Hearts so that all the Nobodies of the world can get their hearts back. Sora fights on, taking down more members of Organization XIII as he goes. At The World That Never Was he is reunited with Kairi. She had been kept prisoner there and Naminé frees her. On their way out Xemnas stops them and tells Kairi he’ll take her to Sora. Then Riku appears out of nowhere to fight off Xemnas, though he has taken on Ansem’s physical form. Eventually, the three are reunited. Sora learns all about Roxas and Naminé, who is Kairi’s Nobody, formed during Kingdom Hearts 1 when Kairi lost her heart.

Now with only Xemnas left to destroy, Riku and Sora team up to take him out. They do so and foil his plan to create a new Kingdom Hearts. Everyone is returned to their home worlds and though Sora must part ways with Donald and Goofy, he knows in his hear he’ll see them again some day. A while later, back on Destiny Islands a bottle washes up on the shore with a letter from Mickey. It is not yet revealed what the letter says.

TL;DR: Roxas wakes up Sora and merges with him, thus giving Sora his memories back. The Dream Team finds out Maleficent is back and doing evil and that now there are beings called Nobodies that need to be stopped. They venture out to put an end to Organization XIII who plan to build a new Kingdom Hearts which will give Nobodies their hearts back. The evil Ansem from before was Xehanort’s Heartless and Xemnas is his Nobody. After killing most of Organization XIII Sora, Riku and Kairi are reunited. They learn that Roxas is Sora’s Nobody and Naminé is Kairi’s Nobody. They kill Xemnas and save the world.

Next up is the one nobody played: Kingdom Hearts Coded!

Coded takes place before the last scene in Kingdom Hearts 2 where Mickey sends his letter to the boys, but after the rest of it. After the world is saved in KH2, Donald, Goofy and Jiminy Cricket are back at Disney Castle. Jiminy is organizing his journal, wondering about the whole “Thank Naminé” thing and he comes across a section he didn’t write. It reads: “We must return to free them from their torment.” Naturally Mickey figures the best way to figure out what it’s about is to digitize the journal and somehow make a cyber universe from it and create virtual version of Sora, Donald and Goofy to find the identity of “them.”

Donald has an observation while giving us his best duckface.

Data-Sora wakes up on Destiny Island and finds it infested with “bugs” in the form of red and black blocks all over the place. Of course there are also Heartless. After defeating them and destroying the bugs he goes to other worlds, following a cloaked figure, on the orders of King Mickey.

At the same time, Heartless begin appearing in Disney Castle and everyone gets trapped in one room. Surprisingly they’re saved by Data-Sora. Suddenly the cloak figures reveals itself to be Jiminy’s journal taking the form of Riku and explains they’re not actually in the real world but in the data world. The Journal sends Sora to discover his true identity only to run into Maleficent and Pete. Maleficent destroys Data-Sora’s Keyblade and summons a bunch of Heartless to kill him. Mickey and The Journal arrive just in time to save our hero but Maleficent steals Journal and Mickey chases after her. Sora makes his way through Hollow Bastion alongside Donald and Goofy. They encounter Pete who summons the Journal and, using the power of bugs, possesses him in order to fight the Dream Team. Naturally Pete loses but the Journal falls unconscious.

Mickey shows up to tell Sora that the Journal won’t wake up as long as the bugs still exist. In his mission to find a way to destroy the bugs Sora enters Riku’s data world, which causes him to lose all his abilities. The pair visit various worlds form Data-Riku’s memories and end up in Hollow Bastion where they beat Maleficent. Meanwhile, Mickey finds he’ll be making his way back to the real world soon but the Journal will be erased once it’s completed. This will of course kill Data-Sora. Real Sora asks if he can have some more time because he wants to save Pete and Maleficent from being erased for some reason. He finds them fighting his Heartless from the first game.

Cheshire Cat is doing QA for Bethesda’s next RPG.

He doesn’t make it in time and has to defeat his own Heartless. But it’s fine. Somehow the Journal saved them through a “rift in the data.” They all leave the data world and the Journal is erased. A new message appears within saying that a door to a new world has been opened, which is the data world’s data being added in the Journal. Mickey figures that since Data-Sora has no memories he shouldn’t go and says he’ll go himself.

Mickey finds Data-Sora in Traverse Town and takes him to Castle Oblivion where he is confronted by a young man in a black coat. The man tells Sora that if he wants to know the truth he has to go through all the worlds he was in destroying bug. On his adventure he realises that even if he doesn’t remember who he’s met, there still exists the sadness of having forgot them. Black coat man warns him not to think too much about that. Sora ends up fighting the guy who turns out to be Roxas. Roxas gets his ass kicked and gives Sora a card just as Mickey appears.

Using the card, Sora opens a door to find Naminé, who reveals bugs were an unintentional side affect of her attempt to restore Sora’s memories. She also reveals that Sora is “the KEy that connects everything” through his connections to herself, Roxas and Xion. Moreover she tells him of three figure also tried to his heart and that they’re the ones referred to in the message and they need his help. They are Terra, Ventus and Aqua. Mickey says goodbye to Data-Sora and promises Naminé he’ll tell the real Sora about all this.

Thus, Mickey sends his letter in a bottle to the real Sora at the end of Kingdom Hearts 2.

TL;DR: Jiminy finds a new message in his journal. Mickey uses computer magic to make a virtual world out of the journal. They go in, Naminé says Sora needs to help Ventus, Aqua and Terra in the real world. Mickey leaves the virtual world to tell him that.

Another one down. That one was pretty light on story but I promise the next one makes up for it in spades. But not until part 3. Next I’ll be going over Dream Drop Distance, 0.2 Birth By Sleep -A Fragmentary Passage- and a little bit more about DiZ. If you missed Part 1, you can find that here.